37 Comments

nice case indeed. i have the GD05 and it sure shows the craftsmanship.

However, i found the this review uses ITX MB in a ATX Case to be... interesting yet pointless. who in their right mind would use ITX MB in this case?

and for CPU coolers, you are just not exploring all the options (or even tried). allow me to copy and paste part of my reviews for GD05 (i have it config with 16G RAM +i7-2700+ SLI GTX 560TI)

...CPU cooler: cooler Master Vortex Plus. VERY IMPORTANT. this is the ONLY after market product that will fit EXTREMELY tightly in this case while giving you the option to have a disk drive. and with powerful setup, you know you need a cooler to replace stock intel cooler (as they are absolutely crap)....

bear in mind, you WILL BE able to fit CM s524 in GD07 since it is a bigger case and you won't run in the problem of having the disk drive blocking additional CPU cooler clearance.Reply

After owning a number of Antec and CoolerMaster cases and replacing them every time I upgrade the motherboard, that has yet to happen with the SilverStone.

My only complaint is the proprietary 180mm fan's that were included with the case (sleeve bearing) both failed after 2 years and although 120mm fans can be installed in their place, I opted for replacement FM181 Silverstone 180mm fans, which are very expensive $25/ea.Reply

yes Dustin, i did read the review. i don't any post comments before finishing reading. great review by the way.

i understand where you are coming from: to have a standardized test bed, something to compare with. and since the ATX test bed uses H212 that is a bit to tall, you were forced to use ITX board.

However... the fact remains that, for folks who plan to use ITX board or mini ITX, the are not going to get ATX case.... is there value to measure the noise/thermal of mini ITX in a full ATX case? maybe,but it probably makes as much useful data as measuring how much towing power does a Ferrari California have (i.e. no one cares). i think it would be much more useful should you use the ATX testbed with stock cooler because that is much more likely situation.

on to the product itself. i see some of the problem with GD05 still reminds: unable to mount water cooling solution. also, could you comment on how many type of screws does this case have? the GD05 they had like 5 or 6 type of screws when it really should be 2 or 3.Reply

And just last week I ordered an Aerocool M40 because there wasn't a better case to put my HTPC/Home Server in. And that thing only has room for 3 or 4 harddisks, and then you have to get a little creative already. FMLReply

I think you got it right, very good choice for people who use the media centre as a 24/7 server as well, but otherwise wholly unconvinced

As a straight media centre it is way too big.

Obviously everyone has slightly different views but here are mine:

1. Blu ray drive is a must - should be vibration dampened. Do not mind if full sized or slim line, slot or tray.

2. SSD + 2.5" HD is enough for me - I have a big NAS to download stored content to. Maybe 2xSSD would even better.

3. One expansion slot is enough, 2 would be nice, 3 is unnecessary, 4 is overkill. For a media centre what would you put in the expansion slots? IGP should be good enough now, but some would prefer a discrete GPU, sound card is an obvious choice, may be a TV tuner but that is it.

4. Silence is golden. 30db is already too loud because you can hear it during quiet sections on movie playback. Obviously not a problem if media centre is in different room.

5. Heat has to be controlled - obviously this causes an issue with the silence is golden concept!Reply

Dustin, I enjoyed the review, and in particular think you absolutely hit the nail on the head with your conclusion that the system has a lot of potential. I'm left wondering if it has a bit too much potential in place of realized excellence since I would personally have appreciated better cabling options, a fan controller that actually worked, and a straight out dedicated hot swap bay, but the headroom (and accompanying theoretical lack of expense from such inclusions) must only make it more attractive to boutiques like the very Puget Systems mentioned in passing for providing the i3 used in the review.

I bring them up mostly since I recall reading a case evaluation they did last year, though unfortunately not the case, in which they mentioned that because of some of the design choices that were made in order to make it "toolless" they didn't trust it to survive shipping with a fully installed system in it. I personally find Puget to be a little too conservative in various ways, but considering that and their willingness to make their own modifications to cases I can at least imagine how a toolless version of the GD07 with grilles on the fans might be an unappealing prospect to an outfit like them. Then again it's not like they actually have a product line the GD07 seems to beg inclusion in (yet?).

As to the "controversy" you alluded to at the start, I don't expressly have a problem with the fact that you used the mini-ITX testbed instead of the (micro) ATX one with a different cooler. However, with the present lack of apples to apples comparisons in the charts, I think the review would have been better served with additional anecdotal comparisons, or even testing out additional fan configurations like some people have been clamoring for. Pulling the fans and maybe even a drive or two out of your own GD05 and then taking the noise and thermal readings again (or even doing noise readings on your GD05 as it usually runs for the aforementioned anecdotal comparison) for instance would have been absolutely brilliant. Then again if you give in to a dog begging for food from the table even once...Reply

17" depth is simply too much for most entertainment centers once you figure in stiff HDMI cables. I'm using the GD04 which Anandtech rightly criticized for the loud fans. All you have to do is reconfigure the power leads to the fans so they are running off the 5V rail and voila, it's quiet. Takes about 1 minute and costs nothing. And the cooling of the three 120's is fine for a low power HTPC. In fact I'm running mine that way with a C2D at 3.0GHz no problem with the stock cpu cooler.Reply

Agreed on the depth - my GD04 is about as deep as I'd want a media center case to be. 17" is ridiculous, IMO. It's at the point I'd be setting it on its side (tower case style) beside everything else, which sort of defeats the point.

One tip - you can get around the HDMI cable (and most other cables, for that matter) issue with angled connectors, or possibly Redmere cables. Reply

I have a Grandia GD06. Not sure what the point is of making a case large enough to support ATX boards. As the reviewer pointed out, a major problem with this case style is the lack of height to support a tower-type cooler. There is a 18mm of additional height compared to the GD06 I have, but most tower coolers require 150mm+ which this case is short by 12mm. You can go with a low-profile cooler like a Gemini 2 but the performance will never match a cheap tower like a Hyper 212+.

Depending on your HTPC usage you can use a stock cooler and be happy. I use my HTPC for commercial skipping (DVRMStoolbox and showanalyzer) and for transcoding to my iPad (Airvideo) which will take as much cpu as you have. My i3-550 runs fine with a slight overclock to 3.6GHz.

Would also prefer these type of cases come with a fan controller.Reply

I had not problem with my Silverstone LC10B-E. It could fit a tower CPU heatsink just fine and was pretty quiet. You seem to think there are really only about 3 options, which is ludicrous. Tons of CPU heatsinks of various designs fit in those ATX desktop cases quite easily and can cool even overclocked quad cores. My i3 530 ran with the aforementioned tower cooler (cheap Arctic Cooling 64 or something) at 4.5GHz. When I used a Lian Li Cube (V351-B) I had a Noctua NH-C12P, which is just under 12cm with the standard fan (you could always use slims) ,I had my i7 860 running at 3.5GHz just fine. :-)So don't be so narrow minded. Lots of options to choose from in every height and cooling segment. :DReply

The purpose of this box is to hold an ATX-sized board which provides the extended number of slots and drive connectors to completely populate the case as a home/media server. It has made some mistakes along the way.

1. It should have been built 'up' instead of 'out'. It is just too deep. I had to modify my entertainment center for a similar design four years ago. You would have thought that the engineers would have corrected that issue by now.2. By being too thin you noticed that it wouldn't hold many CPU coolers. This also eliminates the ability to silently cool a CPU - a colossal mistake. Living room PCs shouldn't be making noise.... at all. Small HTPC cases can do it, why not a larger one which should have more options.3. The drive cage design is stupid. If they are going to provide groups of 5.25" drives they should put them in groups of 3 and also include 3to5 adapters to allow their use in holding 3.5" drives.4. The best design for the cage would include a thin area across the top that is designed to hold the two 2.5" SSDs AND a slim DVD/BD drive. This would allow the rest of the space to be dedicated 3.5" drive space for storage.5. There may be ventilation issues for the hard disks. Have you tried filling the case completely with drives (and put them in an array so that activity spins them all) and checking the drive temps? The board looks adequately cooled, but the drive cage looks like a pit of dead air. Reply

I don't know how PC enclosures could stay pretty much the same for so long when they can be totally reinvented to be less noisy, have less wasted space, be much better ventilated and be much, much, much cheaper. This is getting frustrating since I can't buy literally anything neither to my PC nor a PC to the living room that wouldn't be a complete waste of money, because every single one of them is basically the same and begs to improve it's design. There's only so much to do about it as to build one myself... if I had any skills in bending and cutting metal. Ridiculous...Reply

Thanks for the review -- I was excited to see a review of this Silverstone's latest product. I own a GD04 and love the look and quality of it. My biggest gripe for the case is that it's obviously cramped and a nightmare to do maintenance on.

As time went on, my need for hard drive space has increased in priority, yet physical room inside the case is not available (GD04). In addition, I have a sound card that I would love to add to take over the primary responsibilities of sound output, but I can't because with a 5770 in there, there just isn't any room for it.

I would love to see how this case stacks up compared to the GD04 in detail (since this is a newer model). I am most curious to know, what can I fit in here more comfortably that I couldn't do before? How much hardware can I actually stuff in here without modifying the case? How many hard drives were you able to actually install and wire up completely?

I would have liked to see what you meant by the clearance issues you encountered with the 2.5" drive install.

Sorry for the critical feedback. All that being said, I do appreciate your review.Reply

Yes, please answer all of these questions. These are the exact questions coming to my mind as well. I'm in the market for an HTPC case, but I really need it to store the physical hard drives (5 x 3.5" HDD's).

I'd also really like to see some future reviews of some of the Lian-Li HTPC cases as comparison.Reply

I've been waiting for this case to come out for a while. I can see that it's not getting a good reception as an HTPC case, but they don't really make desktop cases like they did 10-15 years ago and I wonder if this might be the closest thing yet?

I have a new desk arriving shortly that is 72" wide where my previous desk was 48" wide. While I can now support my NV Surround array without the screens hanging over the sides, the desk will crowd out the space where my full tower now sits.

I would like to find a case that trades vertical height for depth and width so I can set it on my desk, under my monitors (which are on a stand).

I wonder how well it would cool a pair of GTX680s and a moderately overclocked 2600k? I know the TT Frio won't fit here but there are plenty of low profile coolers that would work - I'm just wondering how the overall case would fare trying to cool that kind of system.Reply

I respect your decision to use the Micro-ATX testbed and understand why you did it. That being said, I'm among the party you mentioned who would rather have seen the ATX testbed, but with a different cooler.

I think that would have been equally 'fair' (or equally unfair), since the case limits the cooling system options. We would get to see how it handles a high-powered system, despite being limited to 'lesser' cooling options. That's a more useful test, in my book, than the Micro-ATX version. Though it would be 'non-standard' for comparisons.

I like the idea of a door to hide bits, but what about HTPCs with drive-bay-mount IR receivers? I currently have a Cooler Master Elite 360 that I use as an HTPC case, and I have a 3.5"-bay-mount IR receiver for the HTPC remote. Yeah, the obnoxious insanely-bright blue LEDs in the chassis and Blu-ray drive are obnoxious, and I'd happily have a front cover that mutes them a little, but it should let the IR through for my remote.

PS, In my CM Elite 360, I have a full ATX motherboard (Intel DP45SG,) with "Extreme" Core 2 Quad (QX6800 at 130 Watts) with reasonably tall cooler (Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro,) and have had a Radeon 4850 then a 5770 in it. When it's time to upgrade, I'll almost certainly move to a more power-efficient setup, which ironically means I can probably go for a *LESS* "beefy" chassis than the one I have or this one.Reply

I don't see this case offering much the Lian Li PC-33B or PC-C60B don't, other than 2 mostly useless vertical 5.25 bays and more difficult assembly with that huge take-out bay/drive cage thing. Aside from the anodized front panel, the construction looks much cheaper than Lian Li's.

Also, a Zalman 9500AT cooler is 125mm high, not a low-profile "downdraft" model and, based on the HSF clearance specs, should fit in this case.Reply

...I do believe that you should re-define what's the goal of your case reviews...I - like many others it seams - find it too frustrating watching full towers being tested with mATX boards, and now huge "desktop" / HTPC cases being tested with mITX...I can see that it's hard for each reviewer to have a huge selection of components to play with, but in the long run that's what it should be...

IMHO, I don't care if the X product produces a tiny better thermal performance than the Y product, when the latter offers in exchange unique features...

What fits and how, is way more important than comparing decimals in oC readings a cookie standardized rig produces...

In this case, this is not a "mITX" case...if I want such a mini enclosure, I won't buy this beast...period. I would have most likely an ATX board (not even M) and at least one GPU card...I believe trying and measuring and proving that this case is or is not among the few that can for example "do" a large GTX or 79xx card and an ATX board and up to Z sized CPU cooler, would be the primary goal - aka, who needs this case or what it has to offer ontop of a miTX one. Then compare it with others, if any, that can also to that "on-top" part...

Or when you are bringing in full ATX towers clearly aimed for enthusiasts, and you don't even try to fit a large ATX mobo with at least 2x GPU configuration and a few HDDs, do you actually help the target market of this case or do you just satisfy your arbitrary "scientific" rules of repetition?

Aiming purely on temps etc, is the goal of a cooler review, not that of a case.Otherwise is the equivalent of testing a supercar and judging it purely on mileage, disregarding many other tangible and ofc all the intangible benefits of such a "niche" machine. I understand that you have the best on intentions writing these, but so do I commenting on your work.Reply

"Aiming purely on temps etc, is the goal of a cooler review, not that of a case."I see you have a whole lot going with the "etc.", because all anandtech case reviews I read mention potential pitfalls concerning fitting various components in the assembly section quite clearly. And if you don't pay attention to the cooling system of your case, you will always get sub-optimal results concerning cooling and noise even if you get the best cooling equipment money can buy. Cases play a big role in cooling and noise production and reception.Reply

I have the GD-08. I run it as my Gaming HTPC and its great. I fitted a corsair H100 to it with an ASUS P8Z77-V/i5 3570K@4.4GHz, SSD, 3x2TB HD, HD7850, X-fi sound card and dual tuner. I replaced the Antec Fusion 430 case so I had room to have an ATX MB and extra HD's. I did a fair bit of research before picking this case and none others I could find could fit all this hardware.

Can the reviewer tell me seriously why the f*** would you fit an ITX MB into this case?!!!!I am really glad Silverstone built a decent size case. They are hard to find (particularly with USB3 front panel). Thanks very much to Silverstone.Reply

Question: in your build you included an h100, which is precisely what i'd like to do.. either that or the smaller h60. However, the reviewer here basically said that closed radiator systems were a no go due to the motherboard to sideboard constraints. Given that this case is fairly similar to the case you have, what gives? Is it then possible to install an h100 in a stock case or did you have to mod it?

I removed the fans on the inside, removed the filter and secured the 2 120mm fans on the outside with fan grills I pulled off dead PSU's. Due to the positive pressure design, I pointed the fans to bow air into the case. The CPU sits at 30c at idle and 65c under load. The GPU is at 40-43 under load.Reply

Sorry, the GPU temp is at idle not load! I also made an extended Molex cable that comes off the PSU harness to the outside of the case. My entertainment unit has been modified with 2x140mm Bitfenix fans and a Zalman fan control to suck hot air away from the HTPC and receiver amp. I mod I highly recommend! I also find the corsair fans to loud and the corsair controller doesn't make them quiet enough, so use the MB headers and artic cooling PWM fans. I also replaced the fan in the PSU.

I have pictures on face book, but the link I wanted to put got removed.Reply

The fans are ok on their own most of the time, but on the outside they were a little louder. Since I build computers for a living, I have access to a fair few parts, and the Artic cooling ones have more blades, shifting more air at a lower speed. I think the H100 is worth it. No modifying of any structures is done thoughReply